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Negotiation Of Musical Remembrance Within Jewish Ritual Performances In Prague's Old-New Synagogue, Veronika Seidlová

Journal of Urban Culture Research

Prague's Jewish Town has become an important site of remembering for both Jewish and non-Jewish visitors. This ethnographic case study aims to show that global flows of people influence the sound of the ritual in the legendary, medieval Old-New Synagogue in Prague, where multiple Jewish cohorts negotiate their ways of remembering. Based on the understanding of remembrance as socially constructed in the present and of music as a reflection, as well as co-creator of social reality, the essay reveals certain aspects of the social process of negotiation of music remembrance within ritual performance (as observed, e.g., in the case of …

U.S. Metropolitan Bridges To Puerto Rican Music Identity; Cuban And Puerto Rican Music Connections From The 1920'S-1970'S, William George Johnson

Masters Theses

“Cuba and Puerto Rico are As two wings of the same bird, They receive flowers and bullets Into the same heart ...” (Lola Rodriguez de Tio, 1868) Puerto Rican poet and political activist Lola Rodriguez de Tio penned these words after being inspired by the call for the independence of Puerto Rico. Her words were further canonized in Puerto Rican cultural identity after being published in the song La Borinquena by composer Rafael Hernandez. Hernandez’s song would later become a musical symbol of national identity for the island of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Diaspora. The connection between the …

Music In Haredi Jewish Life: Liquid Modernity And The Negotiation Of Boundaries In Greater New York, Gordon A. Dale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I seek to understand tensions regarding boundary maintenance, music, and cultural continuity among the contemporary Haredi (“Ultra-Orthodox”) Jewish community of Greater New York in the context of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity. While Bauman suggests that modernity has melted familiar institutions and created an unstable and rapidly shifting world, I argue that for Haredim, the non-liberal religious community and its cultural productions solidify social bonds. While many Haredi Jews strive to continue the musical practices of pre-WWII Europe, some Haredi musicians push or disregard the boundaries of accepted practice by experimenting with Western popular music …

Elevating My Chicana Feminist Consciousness Through The United States' First Female Show Mariachi, Monica A. Fogelquist

Theses and Dissertations

Mariachi Reyna de Los Ángeles is widely recognized as the premier all-female mariachi in the world. In my thesis, I examine the gendered implications of a female group directed by a man and their relation to Mexican and Mexican American gender ideologies. Many of the ideas on gender roles traditionally inculcated in previous generations of Mexican and Mexican Americans are still manifest in the ways in which the group functions. Through my personal testimony as a former member, and accounts by other past and present members of Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles, I argue that Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles …

"La Reyna Es El Rey": Expressions Of Gender Identity By Female Mariachis In The Southwest, Erika J. Soveranes

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1990s, the popularity of all-female mariachis has grown in the United States. These ensembles push the boundaries, both socially and stylistically, of a genre which has traditionally disregarded female participation. In this thesis, I study two all-female mariachi groups in the Southwest in which I have participated: Mariachi Buenaventura from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Mariachi Margaritas from Brownsville, Texas. These two groups struggle to establish their reputation and aspire towards equal recognition to their male counterparts on the basis of musicality. Based on musical analysis and ethnographic reflections, I argue that the mariachi tradition embodies patriarchal values …

The Transnational Guqin Revival In Flushing, New York, Tyler L. Burba

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the guqin 3,000-year-old history the instrument nearly faced extinction in the Twentieth Century. Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which featured the guqin as a cultural symbol of Chinese identity, there has been a revival of the guqin and its traditional repertoire. This study looks at a small guqin community in New York City's Flushing neighborhood, centered around Master Shi-hua Judy Yeh, and how transnational students are taking advantage of transnational organizations, like the New York Guqin School, to ease the transition into life in New York.

The Application Of Eastern Band Of Cherokee Powwow Music In Music Education, Glenda Motley

Masters Theses

The Virginia education curriculum for fourth grade social studies requires the study of American Indian history and culture. Motivated by research questions, this project proposes a music education curriculum that enhances these social studies lessons through the inclusion of American Indian music. The music of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians located in Cherokee, North Carolina is appropriate for teaching students about this culture. The literature reviewed covers early American Indian history followed by the history of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Resources on the role of women are also explored in society and music. Literature examined on the …

Relational Power, Music, And Identity: The Emotional Efficacy Of Congregational Song, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Relational Power, Music, and Identity: The Emotional Efficacy of Congregational Song

The power of congregational song to unify (or divide) people along various lines is well documented. Yet, how this process of uniting or dividing is accomplished has proven necessarily difficult to document. This paper examines the complex and polyvalent factors that contribute to the meaningfulness of congregational music making, seeking to offer a synthetic, conceptual framework with which to engage this often murky milieu.

Employing interdisciplinary research techniques drawn from sociology, ritual studies, and ethnomusicology, I construct a conceptual framework with which to understand the profoundly formative power of …

Ultramontane Piety And Catholic Sociability: The Prescription And Practice Of Identity In Acadian Patriotic Songs, Jeanette Gallant

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The emergence of ultramontane thought during the Catholic Enlightenment in eighteenth-century France had wide-reaching effects in Catholic communities beyond Europe. One such community was a francophone colonial minority population in Atlantic Canada called the Acadians who, as Canada became a nation-state in the second half of the nineteenth century, came under the control of ultramontane nationalists working to protect Acadian cultural rights from the English-speaking Protestant majority. This paper looks at the role that music played in the transmission of ultramontane thought with these new socio-political circumstances. The Acadians, exiled for seven years during Canadian colonization, were resettled in disparate …

New Bad Girls Of Sudan: Women Singers In The Sudanese Diaspora, Anita H. Fábos

Faculty Works

Explores the new ‘bad girls’ of Sudanese music as they defy national boundaries to bring women’s perspectives and critiques to a global audience. Performers such as Alsarah and Rasha have access to a world music stage to comment upon gender and racial hierarchies, chide Sudanese power brokers about their transgressions, and encourage a more inclusive and just society. Pushback against new voices have included charges in the public domain (e.g. YouTube comments) that these performances are haram and sullied by foreign influence. Emerging out of a larger ethnographic investigation of the Sudanese acoustics of diaspora, my feminist analysis of ‘bad …

"Mr. Furry's Blues": The Life, Music, And Legacy Of Furry Lewis, Jamison Tyler Fritts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation provides in-depth critical analysis of Memphis blues musician Furry Lewis's (1899-1981) life, music, and legacy. I rely on archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and musical and technical analysis to answer a few key questions: 1) Who was Furry Lewis?; 2) Why does his music sound the way it does?; and 3) What impact does he have on current Memphis musicians? Drawing on Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.'s literary critique of the African and Afro-Diasporic legend of Esu-Elegbara, I explore the relationship between Lewis's known biography and the complex web of myths that surround him. I then examine the ways in …

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

Sound Divide: American Popular Music's Response To The "War On Terror" During The George W. Bush Administration, Sarah Jean Dietsche

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

On September 11, 2001, members of Congress, standing in front of the Capitol building, spontaneously broke out into a heartfelt version of "God Bless America." From that day on, music played an important role in society as related to 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror. It is my intention to provide an extended deliberation on the conspicous and varied popular music of this era. By studying post-9/11 musicians and musical expression during the George W. Bush administration, we can develop an understanding of the culture within which they emerged and place this understanding within a broader historical context. I …

The People's Poets: Literature Born Of The Texas Singer-Songwriter Movement Of The Last Forty Years, Phyllis M. Dunham

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The People’s Poets of Texas: Literature Born Within the Singer/Songwriter Tradition of the Last Forty Years is a creative nonfiction exploration of the poetry found within the songs of multiple generations of modern Texas singer/songwriters and a case for the consideration of their work as a genuine regional literature. Studying the roots of Texas music, the musicality of Texan manners of speech and storytelling, and re-examining the Austin, Texas music scene of the 1970s that brought a national focus to the organic, reciprocal manner in which Texas music is traditionally experienced, radically altered the ways in which the songs were …

Music And The Migrant: A Transnational Account Of Cumbia, Irene L. Mekus

Audre Lorde Prize

This paper looks into the cultural synthesization and the transnational ties of cumbia between Latin America and the United States. Three case studies look at the story of migrants and their transnational ties through cumbia and are analyzed through an ethnomusicology framework.

From A Chat In The Parlor To Viral Music Videos: An Analysis Of Music As A Social Occasion, Emma Plotnik

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Imagine an intimate room filled with people playing cards and casually chatting, while one of Chopin’s piano sonatas plays elegantly in the background. This scenario is characteristic of the atmosphere surrounding Classical and Romantic European salons. Salons served as havens of musical discourse from the Baroque era to the early twentieth century. However, with the advancement of technology from the mid-twentieth century to the present, there has been a decline, or, arguably, even a cessation of salon life.

The aim of this project was to recreate the salon environment through the generation of the online discussion forum, "Music Soirée." To …

Alexander Cannon, Carol Barber

International Faculty Researchers

A chance introduction to a largely unknown genre of Vietnamese royal court music that Dr. Alexander Cannon experienced while majoring in economics and music as an undergraduate forged an interest that changed the trajectory of his intended career path from analyzing economic trends to becoming an ethnomusicologist and an expert on don ca tai tu.

Czech Bluegrass In Play, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Drawing from scholarship on play, ritual, and performance, I propose that Czech bluegrass thrives – as does my fieldwork – in a state of in-betweenness, in a territory that is between work, play, here and there, self and other. Being comfortable with this kind of in-between state is important for fieldwork, and for music-making – play, I find, is both a central activity and metaphor in both. The bluegrass play I discuss in this essay can become a response to the encroachment of Americanization in economic and cultural globalization, but also a way of being “Americanist” – and entirely Czech.

The Creation Of Fear Through Censorship: Repression Of Artistic Freedom In The Music Of The Syrian Revolution, Rebecca Aliah Ajamoughli

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

"God, Syria, freedom, and that is all." These four words embody the goals of the Syrian Revolution. Yet, there is one key element of this chant that raises questions surrounding its meaning: freedom. For decades, the people of Syria have been subjected to restricted freedom by the Assad regime-especialIy musicalIy. The regime has artfulIy used music to legitimize its claim to the country. This utilization varies from early-learned pro-Baath chants to the monitoring of all performances held in the country. As Lisa Wedeen says in her work Ambiguities of Domination, "[this control of culture] isolates Syrians from one another, and …

“Mi Alma Cantará”: Tracing Issues In Music Education Within The Colonial And Contemporary Latin American Church, Kerry Digiacomo

Senior Honors Theses

Music education and institutionalized Christianity have been criticized by historians and ethnomusicologists for their role in the domination and transformation of indigenous Latin American cultures since the late 15th century. However, indigenous peoples, including Amerindians as well as more recent mestizo and Ladino people groups, have also taken an active role in transforming European musics to reflect an emic understanding of their own cultural identity. Music education within the Latin American church has provided an interface for these complex interactions between foreign and native cultural influences. This paper will explore the connections between colonial and contemporary-era music education movements in …

Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (The Irish Musicians' Association) And The Politics Of Musical Community In Irish Traditional Music, Lauren Weintraub Stoebel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (The Irish Musicians' Association) and its role in the politics of Irish traditional music communities. A revivalist organization founded in 1951, Comhaltas today is an educational and activist organization whose mission includes the preservation and promotion of Irish traditional music. Its numerous programs--from local music classes to a national festival drawing thousands of participants--intersect at some point with the musical lives of nearly every Irish traditional musician. Because of this widespread activity, Comhaltas interacts, often contentiously, with many of the different musical communities through which Irish traditional musicians define themselves both publically and privately. …

Lifting The Veil On Hindi Film Song Sequences: An Approach To Analysis, Maria A. Souliotis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to augment previous scholarly research on Hindi film song through the presentation of a multivalent approach to thoroughly understanding and interpreting Hindi film song sequences. In a case study of the song sequence “Pardā Haı̃ Pardā” ("There Is a Veil,"? from Manmohan Desai's 1977 film Amar Akbar Anthony), the three essential elements of these sequences (on-screen visuals, text, and music) are connected to the context of South Asian history and culture to demonstrate how scholarly approaches to music, film, and cultural studies can be united to create a more interdisciplinary approach to analysis. The approach also …

The Mad Science Of Hip-Hop: History, Technology, And Poetics Of Hip-Hop's Music, 1975-1991, Patrick Rivers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1979, the first commercial recordings of hip-hop music were released. The music's transition from the parks and clubs of the Bronx to recorded media resulted in hip-hop music being crafted and mediated in a recording studio before reaching the ears of listeners. In this dissertation I present a comprehensive investigation into the history of the instrumental component of hip-hop music heard on recordings, commonly referred to as beats. My historical narrative is formed by: the practices involved in the creation of hip-hop beats; the technologies that facilitated and defined those practices; and the debates around these two aspects that …

Arts Outreach In The Middle East, Matthias Clark

Masters Theses

After centuries of debate and discussion regarding the value and appropriateness of arts in the Middle East, specifically music, many indigenous people have recently pursued active roles in championing indigenous and international arts toward social reform, identity formation, and spiritual development. This shift in use and function of the arts has been reflected in some groundbreaking attempts of using arts in contextualized forms that have impacted spiritual communities. This study is designed to compare two specific case studies that exemplify these shifts: the "School of Worship and Music" and the "Creative Center". These organizations will be analyzed and compared in …

Tunetracker: Tensions In The Surveillance Of Traditional Music, Bryan Duggan, Norman M. Su

Conference papers

We describe the design and deployment of the first system ever to dynamically track and publish records of folk music playing. TuneTracker is a software system that has been, at time of writing, deployed at a pub in Dublin, Ireland for five months. It captures, stores, and posts the names of tunes played in Irish traditional music sessions on a public website. This paper makes two contributions: (1) drawing from a two year ethnographic study of trad musicians, it details the design and development of a system to track and publish traditional musicians’ practices while respecting the ethos of tradition, …

The Piano Music Of Jose Montserrat Maceda, Frances Alfaras Niduaza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The obscurity of Maceda's piano works led to this study; ergo this will contribute to their understanding and significance. His "Two Pianos, Four Winds," composed in 1996 for clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, and two pianos, will be the focus of this study. His other piano works, "Music for Five Pianos," (1994), "Music for Two Pianos and Four Percussions," (2000), and "Sujeichon - A Korean Court Music for Four Pianos," (2002), will be briefly discussed. In order to fully comprehend the conceptual framework of his compositions, one has to be cognizant of his discourse, i.e., the influences of Western European avant-garde, …

Sounds Of A People: An Ethnomusicological Study In Rio De Janeiro, Scott Harwood Homer, Dr. Ron Brough

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The music of Brazil has a rich heritage and great diversity. Its rhythms, developed by street musicians, are sophisticated and challenging. The people I met know well the songs they hear live and on the radio, and the musicians respond to this by constantly performing creative arrangements of what is formally called “Brazilian Popular Music” (MPB in Portuguese). The result is a culture in which music is a pleasurable part of daily life for most everyone.

Special Issue: Central Asian Cultural Heritage Q News Volume.1 No.2, University Of Central Asia

Selected secondary sources and publications with substantial content about AKU

Special Feature: Cultural Heritage and Preservation, News, Research & Learning, People, Construction.

Across The Red Steppe: Exploring Mongolian Music In China And Exporting It From Within, Thalea C. Davis

Masters Theses

Mongolian music culture as it exists in China is a unique entity unto itself as it features a base of traditional Mongolian practice and also includes aspects of Chinese music and culture. As the world becomes more interconnected and as China continues to display a markedly Han society to the world at large, Mongolian musicians and Mongolian-music enthusiasts in China maintain and evolve their musical culture in a nebulous middle-ground between Mongolian and Han-Chinese culture. How Mongolian music culture in China came to be and its ultimate function in global society are the key questions being investigated in this thesis. …

Kachin Sound Instruments Within The Context Of The Kachin Baptist Convention Of Northern Burma: History, Classification, And Uses, Walter Brath

Masters Theses

This organology identifies and describes the Kachin's sound instruments, classifies them according to the Hornbostel-Sachs' system, and considers evidence of an indigenous classification scheme. Very little research exists to date on the music of the Kachin peoples of Northern Burma. This paper cites the only known indigenous organology and is the first English language study to extrapolate evidence into an emergent classification system. This qualitative study is based on ethnographic interviews, the minimal literature available on the topic, and participant observation drawn from fieldwork conducted in the Kachin State of Northern Burma (modern day Myanmar) during the months of May …